If he survives, the Ft. Hood shooter will of course be charged with murder, but it’s reasonable to inquire whether treason should also be charged. After all, for a major in the U.S. Army, trained at taxpayer expense in the use of weapons, to shoot 40 unarmed comrades-in-arms would seem like a reasonable example of waging war on the United States.

However, the Constitution’s delineation of treason might not cover this:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

What does “levying war” mean? Although “levying” is sometimes today said to be the same as “waging,” that doesn’t appear to be the legal definition. In one of the the treason cases (Bollman) growing out of the still mysterious Aaron Burr conspiracy, the Chief Justice John Marshall of the Supreme Court ruled in 1807, “But there must be an actual assembling of men for the treasonable purpose, to constitute a levying of war.” In other words, “levying” means raising a body of warriors. Therefore, whether Major Hasan plotted solely alone or was conspiring with others, and if so, did they in some fashion “assemble,” would appear to be relevant.

On the other hand, the second type of treason, “or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort” would appear to be an easier hurdle to leap. The first time the Supreme Court upheld a treason conviction was in the 1947 Haupt case in which naturalized citizen Hans Mark Haupt was sentenced to life in prison for sheltering in his Chicago home his son, a German spy (one of the eight saboteurs landed by a German sub in a semi-farcical failed infiltration). The son was convicted by military tribunal and executed. In the father’s case, noted civil libertarian Justice William O. Douglas wrote the majority opinion upholding the father’s conviction, while Justice Jackson wrote a lonely dissent arguing that the father’s intentions were filial rather than treasonous.

Since the elder Haupt was legally guilty of treason for merely helping his son, then Hasan’s shooting two score American soldiers in cold blood would appear to be an even better example of “adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” However, that does raise the issue of who exactly our Enemies are, a question that has been left rather ambiguous by Congress’ refusal to issue a Declaration of War since 1942.

Adrian Blomfield of the neocon Daily Telegraph does a great job of giving the Ft. Hood shooter’s Palestinian cousins in Ramallah in the West Bank (Ramallah is the capital of the Palestinian National Authority) enough rope:

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is the suspected shooter at Fort Hood U.S Army Post where according to authorities 12 people were shot and killed and 31 other were wounded Photo: EPA

Speaking from their home in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Hasan’s relatives painted a picture of a man cornered into an act of “lunacy” by the repeated discrimination of his peers and an attempt by the army to force him to serve in Afghanistan.

“They discriminated against him because he was a Muslim,” Mohammed Mohammed, one of Hasan’s cousins, told the Daily Telegraph. “We’re not trying to make excuses for him but what we were told was that he was under a lot of pressure.

“What we imagine is that he could not take this bad treatment and gave vent unfortunately.” …

In the house next door, Hasan’s brother Anas had locked himself indoors with his wife, refusing to speak to anyone, including his relatives.

According to his cousins, Hasan was badly scarred by the deaths of his parents in 1998 and 2001. Along with his two brothers, he became increasingly devout, they said.

“They became very religious after their mother died,” Mohammed Hasan said. “They were very observant. They prayed a lot.”

Yet the two cousins insisted that the major’s religion was not tinged with political fanaticism, although they said he had become increasingly withdrawn and uncommunicative in recent years.

(more…)

William Saletan [Email him] writes in Slate

“Fort Hood, Texas, hosts tens of thousands of men who are trained to fight for their country. But none of them stopped Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as he blew away 13 of their colleagues Thursday afternoon. It was a civilian police officer, Sgt. Kimberly Munley, who confronted and shot him in an exchange of gunfire.”[Girls in the Hood | If women can defend Fort Hood, they can defend America. By William Saletan, November 6, 2009]

That’s stupid–the reason that none of the servicemen present on the scene shot Major Hasan because none of them had a gun. The Army has a mania for keeping loaded guns away from soldiers, which it not only exercises at Fort Hood and Fort Dix, but in Iraq, Afghanistan and on the Mexican Border.

Women can make good police officers, in spite of their physical weakness, but they can’t do ground combat.  Fred Reed explains why:

(more…)

A bunch of people have been shot in Orlando, Florida’s Gateway Center  office building. Police are seeking a man named Jason Rodriguez.

UPDATE: Suspect in custody.

Here’s the AP:

Details emerge about Fort Hood suspect background

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE (AP) – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON — His name appears on radical Internet postings. A fellow officer says he fought his deployment to Iraq and argued with soldiers who supported U.S. wars. He required counseling as a medical student because of problems with patients.

There are many unknowns about Nidal Malik Hasan, the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base. Most of all, his motive.[More]

The word Muslim, which you’ll notice does not appear as a modifier to the word “radical” in “radical Internet postings”. The word Muslim first appears in this story 365 words down, in reference to the fact that Islam is unpopular in the army.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Hasan’s aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, Va., said he had been harassed about being a Muslim in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and he wanted out of the Army.

“Some people can take it and some people cannot,” she said. “He had listened to all of that and he wanted out of the military.”

There’s more about the Muslim background, but they’re still radically puzzled about his motive.(The photograph above shows Nidal Malik Hasan wearing Muslim dress in 7-Eleven on the morning of the attack.)

More from Tim Blair:INFORMATION LEARNED, CONCEALED.

Mark Steyn is talking about it on Rush Limbaugh. (Listen here.)

Contrary to initial reports, the Fort Hood shooter, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is alive. He was shot by a civilian police officer, Kimberly Munley, whom he wounded. Officer Munley is reportedly “in stable condition.” Depending on reports, Akbar is in stable condition or on a ventilator. He was caught on a store video at 6: 20 a.m. yesterday in traditional Moslem garb. You know what that means: The mass murder had nothing to do with Islam!

Already, officials are feverishly coming up with Bizarro World, non-Islamic explanations for the mass murder. Hasan was reportedly distraught about being deployed to Afghanistan, and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, based on the stories his combat veteran patients had told him. Never mind that, as James Fulford pointed out, you can’t get PTSD without “without actual trauma.”

Of course, Hasan was upset… because he’s a Moslem!

A military mental health doctor facing deployment overseas opened fire at the Fort Hood Army post on Thursday, setting off on a rampage that killed 12 [N.S.: in the meantime, 13] people and left 31 [30] wounded, Army officials said.

Authorities said immediately after the shootings that they had killed the suspected shooter, but later in the evening they recanted and said that he was alive and in stable condition at a hospital, watched by a guard.

“His death is not imminent,” said Lt. Gen. Bob Cone at Fort Hood. He offered little explanation for the mistake, other than to say there was confusion at the hospital.

A law enforcement official identified the shooting suspect as Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

The violence was believed to be the worst mass shooting in history at a U.S. military base.

The shooting began around 1:30 p.m., when shots were fired at the base’s Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening, Cone said.

[Army: Fort Hood shooting rampage suspect is alive by April Castro and Devlin Barrett, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, November 5, 2009, 18:38 PST.]

Initial reports said that there were three shooters. Later reports stated that there was only one shooter, and that the other two men had been released, only to be superseded by reports saying that three men are in custody. Now, we are being told that Hasan was a “lone shooter.” In other words, no one outside of the top echelons of the military police currently knows what the situation is.

In this morning’s New York Times news blog, there is nothing about three shooters, but the following 8:38 a.m. update has Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan “Allahu Akbar!” (“Allah is great!”) while shooting people.

“Update | 8:38 a.m. In an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC Friday morning, Gen. Robert Cone, the Fort Hood commander, said that Major Hasan is in stable condition but has not yet been interrogated. Mr. Lauer said that a relative of one of the witnesses to the shooting said that Major Hasan shouted ‘Allahu akbar’ (’God is great’) during the rampage. Gen. Cone said that ‘there are first-hand accounts here from soldiers that are similar to that.’

[Latest Updates on Shootings at Fort Hood by Robert Mackey, The Lede: The New York Times News Blog, November 6, 2009.]

The alleged Fort Hood shooter turns out to be alive, and there’s been a weird suggestion that he got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from listening to war stories from patients:

“He would tell us how he would hear things, horrific things,” said cousin Nader Hasan, adding that dealing with soldiers returning from war zones was “affecting him psychologically.”

It is a cruel irony that the very mental disorder Maj. Hasan was trained to treat may have claimed him as a victim. PTSD is increasingly being linked to suicide and violence among troops returning from overseas combat. Media reports indicated Maj. Hasan is single with no children.[National Post]

He may have been unhappy hearing about the war, especially if he was an enemy sympathizer, since he would then feel bad hearing about successful operations as well as scary one, but that’s not the same as PTSD. You can’t get post-traumatic stress disorder without actual trauma.

From the Austin American-Statesman’s blog

Home > The Blotter > Archives > 2009 > November > 05 > Entry
McCaul says suspect had special training in shooting, parents hailed from Jordan

By W. Gardner Selby | Thursday, November 5, 2009, 05:40 PM

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, who has been briefed on the shootings at Fort Hood, said one suspect, Nadal Malik Hasan, was a physician who was born in Virginia to parents who hailed from Jordan.

He said he didn’t yet have the names of two other suspects.

“The background of these individuals is going to be critical,” McCaul said.

Hasan, McCaul said, “took a lot of advanced training in shooting.” He said he’s not sure why.

He said Hassan, with others, acted at Fort Hood using handguns.

“They did a tremendous amount of damage,” he said, considering they did not have AK-47s.

“It’s clear this was a coordinated attack,” McCaul said, adding that some have attributed it to the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, though it’s premature to say so. “It’s too early to jump to any conclusions.”

McCaul said he also has been told that Hasan had undergone rehabilitative alcohol counseling.

“Whether it was domestic or foreign, clearly when a U.S. military base is attacked in this kind of fashion, that is an act of terror in my book,” McCaul said.

If you remember The Godfather, you may remember that Michael Corleone was also the child of immigrants whose parents didn’t want him to go into the military. The fact that may have been born in Virginia doesn’t mean this isn’t an immigration story.

VDARE.com’s readers are willing to go to lengths that the Main Stream Media’s writers can’t or won’t go: one has established that the “Mayberry” perp was indeed an immigrant, maybe illegal.

Reader John J. Pershing (e-mail him) writes

Note that the NC Dept. of Corrections mug sheet on Chavez Gonzales indicates: “Detainer:-Y” That means that there was an INS detainer placed on this guy at some point between his original arrest for kidnapping and his illegal release on probation (people on probation are supposed to obey federal and state laws, IA’s are ipso facto probation violators as soon as their probation intake interviews are conducted) as the second part of his “split sentence”. A “split sentence” in NC is a ruse that allows judges to dodge the abolition of parole in NC under the “Truth In Sentencing Act” and “Structured Sentence Act”.

and later writes:

Just got off the phone with Lt. Shelton regarding our boy’s lodging history in the Surry County lock up.

First stay (under the name of Marcos Gonzalez Chavez anyway) was in 2001 for his felony child kidnapping charge which got him into the NC prison system with an INS detainer as previously pointed out.

Next was in 2006 for a little less than 30 days and a guilty plea in court for no operator’s license arrest–released on time served as sentence.

Again on 6/06/06 for a parole violation. (from his child kidnapping conviction split sentence)

And now.

Gonzalez Chevez told Surry County detention intake officers that he was born in Mexico on this arrest. ICE has not issued a detainer yet. As of a few minutes ago Chavez Gonzalez has not received any visitors since his transfer from Virginia. I didn’t ask, but my guess is that his first appearance in Surry County Court will be today and he’ll get a court appointed defense attorney.

P.S.–Lt. Shelton is an affable fellow with a good sense of humor. It took him about 10 minutes to get to the phone because he was dealing with some sort of computer control problem on the sally port gates. I remarked that it sure was quite a leap from “one bullet” Barney getting locked in a cell by Otis the drunk to having computer problems with the sally port. He got a kick out of that.

I should point out that in the Mount Airy, NC shootings, it seems that all the victims were Hispanic, and at least one of the survivors can’t speak English:

Watson identified the victims — all residents of the town — as Victor Alfonso Martinez-Jimenez, 22; Javier Manuel Martinez, 21; Juan Manuel Martinez, 26; and Marcos Oviedo Aguliar, 21.

Michelle Oviedo, 21, said her boyfriend and brother were among the dead and the alleged shooter is her mother’s boyfriend. She said she was sitting on her porch not far from Wood’s TV when she heard the gunshots.

“When I got there, Javier and my brother were already gone,” she said. “They were on top of each other.”

Jose Armando Hernandez, 46, said through a translator that three of the victims were his nephews. He said his family is “destroyed” over the deaths, which he said stemmed from a problem with a woman.[Ex-con charged in 4 fatal shootings in 'Mayberry' By ALYSIA PATTERSON (AP) – 7 hours ago]

See also the North Carolina Department of Corrections page for MARCOS CHAVEZ GONZALEZ, which lists his age as 29, his race as “Other,” and doesn’t mention his citizenship or immigration status at all.